Environmental Engineering Reference
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tries studied; throughout the world knowledge on this linkage and practice in coordination
remains weak (UNESCO 2006: 54f). Therefore, a consequence for future water institutional
reforms is that the links between water and land as well as between all sectors affected should
be studied in detail and reforms aligned. It is of crucial importance to define preconditions
necessary for water institutional reforms and then develop a schedule of which reforms have to
happen first. Sound sequencing of reforms requires not only the coordination between the
sectors but also between all donors active in the country. This is certainly a challenging task. It
means that conflicting interests have to be discussed and solved before single reforms can
begin. That will make the decision making process considerably longer. But it can prevent
counterfactual effects and ease implementation afterwards.
Avoiding the Marginalization of the Meso Level
The analysis of water institutional reforms revealed how processes in both countries face ob
stacles due to inter and intra institutional incoherencies within water institutions. These are
rooted in different time horizons of change, but also in one sided reform activities. It was
shown that the meso level of water administration especially is not sufficiently addressed, al
though it is crucial for the implementation of reforms. It appeared rather passive and margina
lized in decision making, resulting in a lack of information on, ownership of, and commitment
to reforms. This is aggravated by its precarious situation at the level of the individual em
ployees as well as of the organization in general. In practice, the meso level is marginalized in
politics, by the central level as well as by the donors. Despite the rhetoric change in donor
discourses that stresses the need of strengthening of water governance capacities, it is not
necessarily followed by a change in practice. It was already mentioned that budget allocation to
water projects do not get priority, and most of the money is still spent on infrastructure (see
ch. 1). As a consequence, in both cases the meso level appeared as an obstacle to reform rather
than a guarantee for its proper implementation.
Hence, the inclusion of the meso level in decision making and in projects is an essential
precondition in order to encourage implementation and to achieve compliance to reform.
Capacity building programs and trainings on rights and responsibilities should not only address
WUA staff and members, but also the officials of the state water bureaucracy. In Kyrgyzstan,
the administration is involved in reforms at least with the WUA support structure, but in Taji
kistan merely. The strong presidential apparatus may not mislead to the imagination that these
states would be strong. Tajikistan is a fragile state and also Kyrgyzstan is rather “under
governed” (Starr 2006:14f). Under such circumstances, the neglecting of state structures as
those that have to be the ones that enable institutionalization and formalization of new forms
of behavior might have fatal effects.
CBOs and NGOs receiving donors' aid feel generally accountable to their financier and
not to the population. While the same might be said of state administration, the latter is at least
de jure accountable to the population. It might be more wise to pressure for its de facto ac
countability and transparency than to replace them by CSOs and outsource responsibilities;
hence, accepting undemocratic structures as a given. In this respect, Dinar (1998: 371) noted
on decentralization of irrigation services:
“What is important is not so much who does what but that there are clear lines of authority and accountability,
where every right, task and responsibility (from water rights to service definition and authorization to delivery,
payment and regulation) is assigned to someone and agreed to and understood by all.”
Here lies also the problem in the two case studies. Transparency is a basic precondition for
water institutional reforms and it is the water administration that has to coordinate and provide
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